What is the CAKES Stack?
CAKES is an open-source application networking stack built to integrate and better solve the challenges faced by successful enterprise organizations which leverage IT to build new and innovative digital services. These user experiences are underpinned by a large and growing web of APIs, microservices, and cloud applications that must be highly available, fault tolerant, and secure.
Introducing the CAKES Stack
The way applications are connected to networks is critical for their performance, dependability, and security. The tools and platforms you use play a crucial role in making sure your applications run smoothly.
Whether managing containerized workloads, simplifying communication between services, assigning identities to services, or establishing connections between them, your organization will likely rely on open-source technologies in some way. Solutions like Kubernetes, Istio, Envoy, CNIs, SPIFFE/SPIRE, and others offer a wide range of capabilities that form the foundation of modern application networking.
Best-of-breed technologies that integrate well with each other are based on modern cloud principles, and have been proven at scale are likely better equipped to handle the challenges we see.
CAKES is built on the following open-source technologies:
- CNI (Cilium, Calico)
- Ambient mode (Istio)
- Kubernetes
- Envoy Proxy (API Gateway)
- SPIFFE (SPIRE)
This stack is intended to be coupled with modern practices like GitOps, declarative configuration, and platform engineering.
Solo.io CAKES Stack Components
| CAKES Stack Component | Function | OSI Layer | Gloo Gateway | Gloo Mesh | Gloo Network for Cilium |
| CNI via Cilium, Calico | Container connectivity/policy | L3/L4 | — |  |  |
| Ambient mode Istio Service Mesh | East-west connectivity/policy | L4/L7 | — | | — |
| Kubernetes | Container runtime/orchestration | L7 |  | | |
| Envoy Proxy | Ingress/Egress, API Gateway | L7 | | — | — |
| SPIFFE via SPIRE | Workload identity framework | L4 | | | |
CAKES gives platform owners and engineers modern tools to improve developer experience, improve the speed of delivery, and improve compliance posture. CAKES is well-suited for platform engineering approaches and fits natively within GitOps workflows.
Solo.io is at the forefront of driving the respective OSS projects that make up the CAKES stack and is the only one to provide commercial support for this stack.